Comments for melreams.comhttp://melreams.com
NerrrrdWed, 31 Jan 2018 05:53:53 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4Comment on Link of the day by Bryanhttp://melreams.com/2018/01/link-of-the-day-19/#comment-13533
Wed, 31 Jan 2018 05:53:53 +0000http://melreams.com/?p=1470#comment-13533Inheritance is a tool like many others. It just so happens that it’s baked into many languages instead of being a bolt-on pattern. There are times when it’s useful, there are times when it isn’t. Use the right tool for the job instead of reaching for the tool you’re most familiar with :)
]]>Comment on Stubbornness > intelligence by Link of the day – melreams.comhttp://melreams.com/2016/05/stubbornness-intelligence/#comment-13473
Mon, 18 Dec 2017 17:02:45 +0000http://melreams.com/?p=562#comment-13473[…] is enormously valuable, I even believe it’s more important than intelligence if you want to a programmer, but knowing when to quit is valuable too. That’s why I like I […]
]]>Comment on Process smells by Mel Reamshttp://melreams.com/2017/11/process-smells/#comment-13461
Wed, 06 Dec 2017 04:34:35 +0000http://melreams.com/?p=1374#comment-13461You make a good point. A few years ago a local game studio got rave reviews for their game because they happened to have released it after a year of buggy AAA-studio releases and people were really excited about getting to play a game that actually worked. Even with the ability to provide updates for console games, people were pissed they couldn’t play the games they paid for right away.

Would it be a net benefit to have higher quality standards so that shipping on Friday isn’t scary, or does the time and cost make that less than worthwhile?

I don’t know either, but that’s a really interesting question. There are certainly some features I’ve released that would have benefited from more testing, and if I were to go back and ask the customers who found those bugs if they would rather we had waited to release those features at all I’m not sure what they’d say.

There’s this belief that you have to be first out of the gate with new features or your customers will all ditch you for the competition, but I’m not sure that’s actually true – at least not for B2B products. For something like free-to-play games then yeah, you probably do need to grind features out as fast as you can, but once you’ve invested in researching and integrating a product then you’re not going to drop it instantly.

I think not having to wait months for updates is generally a win, but I also think we’re overcorrected as an industry to the point where we do outsource QA to our customers at least some of the time. It probably would be better for customers to have not-quite-as-fast updates that work more reliably, although with the sheer volume of users software has to handle these days I have to admit it’s pretty hard to catch every possible bug.

]]>Comment on Process smells by Bob Warwickhttp://melreams.com/2017/11/process-smells/#comment-13456
Wed, 29 Nov 2017 08:04:11 +0000http://melreams.com/?p=1374#comment-13456Devils advocate: There’s been plenty of software written with processes that don’t allow for immediate hot fixing. Boxed software, software that requires third party app store review for distribution, etc. We still ship good software, despite not being able to come in and fix it when we get the first bug report. Our bar for what constitutes a QA pass is pretty high.

Is it a process smell that you’re relying on the ability to instantly deploy? How would the software you deploy and your process change if you weren’t able to rely on hot fixes? Are you outsourcing your QA to customers? Would it be a net benefit to have higher quality standards so that shipping on Friday isn’t scary, or does the time and cost make that less than worthwhile?

(I’m honestly not sure. I believe QA, both automated and human has to be part of a software release process, but I also fully acknowledge that you can’t anticipate every issue. The ability to hot fix is fantastic, and it moves you from the version-number model of software release, but I’m not sold that that’s a win for your customer.)

]]>Comment on Be a better programmer while still having a life: part 5 by “How do you approach a new codebase?” – melreams.comhttp://melreams.com/2017/02/be-a-better-programmer-while-still-having-a-life-part-5/#comment-13452
Mon, 20 Nov 2017 17:01:12 +0000http://melreams.com/?p=896#comment-13452[…] aside: I’ve said this before, but if your company doesn’t have any docs, write them! Seriously, you’ll make things so much easier for the next dev, who might even be you. If […]
]]>Comment on Back to basics: Classes by Let’s poke at Tomcat! – melreams.comhttp://melreams.com/2017/09/back-to-basics-classes/#comment-13449
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 17:02:17 +0000http://melreams.com/?p=1177#comment-13449[…] while ago I mentioned that every Java project has to have a main method somewhere. I started thinking it would be interesting to dig into a larger project and show how even a whole […]
]]>Comment on Code smell: long parameter list by Code smell: temporary fields – melreams.comhttp://melreams.com/2017/08/code-smell-long-parameter-list/#comment-13448
Mon, 30 Oct 2017 16:00:40 +0000http://melreams.com/?p=1238#comment-13448[…] of the ways people try to fix the problem of a long parameter list is to make some of those parameters into fields and then set them later if they need to. […]
]]>Comment on Development is communication by Arrogance is definitely a blocker – melreams.comhttp://melreams.com/2016/07/development-is-communication/#comment-13445
Mon, 23 Oct 2017 16:01:20 +0000http://melreams.com/?p=646#comment-13445[…] First of all, software development is a team sport. Sure, side projects and prototypes can be built by individuals, but the vast, vast majority of business software is built by teams, which means that communication is everything. […]
]]>Comment on Be a better programmer while still having a life: part 10 by Be a better programmer while still having a life: part 12 – melreams.comhttp://melreams.com/2017/09/be-a-better-programmer-while-still-having-a-life-part-10/#comment-13432
Mon, 02 Oct 2017 16:01:35 +0000http://127.0.0.1/?p=1262#comment-13432[…] checking extremely simple obvious things can save you massive amounts of time. Like I said earlier, a little self-doubt is good for you. If you can’t ever doubt yourself at all, you’re going to waste a lot of time on silly […]
]]>Comment on Be a better programmer while still having a life: part 10 by Be a better programmer while still having a life: part 11 – melreams.comhttp://melreams.com/2017/09/be-a-better-programmer-while-still-having-a-life-part-10/#comment-13415
Mon, 11 Sep 2017 16:05:41 +0000http://127.0.0.1/?p=1262#comment-13415[…] to stop bothering to share their opinions, that’s the way to do it. Like I said last time, you have to be open to the idea that you could be wrong. You need your team’s ideas to make the best decision you can, and you can’t possibly […]
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